Property Taxes

Over the weekend, we received a notice from the Jenn's employer. It said that we were delinquent on our property taxes and would need to pay a 10% penalty. It also said that, since Jenn was a government employee, her wages would be garnished until the tax was payed. We were both really surprised by this because our property tax comes out of an escrow account managed by our mortgage company. We got the letter on Saturday, so on Monday we made a couple of frantic calls to both the lender and the county to see what was going on. The county treasurer told us that the tax was paid in full, including the penalty, and that our current balance was $0. Great! So we called that lender, who told us that they wrote a check in the amount of the tax. Our escrow account was charged only for the amount of the tax, not the delinquency penalty. I guess the lender just ate that fee. So in the end, we got all upset over the weekend over nothing. Hopefully we don't go through the same thing again six months from now. We're thinking that what happened was that, since we refinanced last spring, the tax bill went to the old lender. The new lender never received it, so didn't pay the bill. They only paid it when they received the delinquency notice from the county. I'm just glad that it is all worked out, and no one is garnishing Jenn's wages.